Without even realizing it, we have been a part of many discourse communities throughout our lives. Although it may seem hard to identify, since to oneself a particular community may not seem like one, chances are they may be. I’ve realized discourse communities for myself may be hard to identify since I forget to think about the fact that not everyone shares your interests and experiences. Hence, not everyone knows what you know, and what you mean when you use a particular word or reference specific things. Which is also a part of something classifying as a discourse group, since that applies to one of the needed characteristics as described by Swales (lexis). Along with lexis there are many more aspects that we should keep in mind, which may be hard to identify such as genres or even possible roles depending on the community.
Melzer’s “Understanding Discourse Communities” was a great way to display a simple example of a discourse community. As he was able to connect his hobby of learning guitar to a discourse community he found, I had found it a lot easier to come to a better understanding of the functions and interconnections in a discourse community, than I did while reading the example provided by Swales. After reading Melzer’s essay, I was able to think a little deeper into the possible discourse communities in my life and the identifiable six characteristics by Swales standards in my communities.
Leave a Reply